Brettia

Hey, it’s my second entry in as many days. Perhaps I’m a better blogger than I thought. And I am pushing 40,000 words, so…half a book? As if any of this is really worth publishing. Maybe in the future when people are trying to look back and see what people thought in the past. Still, I’m no Anne Frank. (For many reasons, this is a good thing, such as the events that occur on pages 130 and 142 of her diary.)

The real reason I’m writing now is that a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Today was the day I set aside for the completion of a project for English. This project, a model of a theme in the play, “The Glass Menagerie,” was one of the hardest I have ever attempted to accomplish.

First of all, the play was nothing special. It was about a dysfunctional family in the 1930s, and how they all conspired against each other to make their lives miserable inadvertently. Second, my teacher, Mrs. Kulinski, had to go to meetings all day on Thursday and Friday, so we had a horrible substitute who knew nothing about what she was doing and was unable to operate the telephone-controlled VCR. I also got pulled out of class (thankfully!) by Mr. Trapani that period to help him with…something. I don’t remember what it was anymore. So I missed most of the movie, anyway. Then on Friday I put on my sweet, goody-goody smile and was able to get the substitute to let me borrow a “Menagerie” book and read the end. Like I said, it sucked.

Friday was spent doing an incredibly time-consuming study guide, which I was able to complete by working on it in math, social studies, biology, and Spanish. It’s amazing that my grades are so high with the amount of times I completely ignore my teachers each day. Last week was all about preparing for finals, anyway, so it wasn’t anything major to miss. I just did the worksheets and study guides and found a book to keep me occupied. I was able to get through two just by reading during my spare time during school and on the bus last week. Not bad.

Back to the story about the project. Anyway, Mrs. Kulinski was gone, and I didn’t really understand what I was supposed to do. I could have e-mailed her, but I didn’t…for some reason. (Thought: How could I have forgotten to e-mail her?) So I was confused, and I started working at about 2:00 today. I finished at 7:30. Five hours, once you take out dinner. Ouch. And all throughout that time I was worrying about whether or not it fit in with what my teacher wanted, which was kind of vague. At the end, I think I actually got it right. Sure, the workmanship is nothing to be proud of, but I think it represents what I want it to represent. Hopefully it will be better that most other people’s projects.

Did I do anything else today? No. No, because I had that stupid useless project to do. I’m not as angry about it as I was. I need to work on my church’s website, which has been in limbo since sometime in October. I just don’t have time anymore.

Again, it’s ironic that I should become so busy right after complaining that I had nothing to do. Now, though, it’s all downhill until Christmas break, and I’m thankful for it. For me, finals are easy. I have an uncanny ability to retain useless information, therefore I can remember everything I learn in school. I’m even better at remembering things when there is some kind of defect associated with it. I might remember a quote if I find a typo in it, or I might remember a theorem if I used it on a proof and got the question wrong. Things like that. Imperfections and flaws. I’m lucky that humans aren’t perfect.

I’m lucky for other reasons, too. Sometimes I wonder if I have God (or Buddha, or Mohammad) on my side. Things just work out, sometimes, when it looks like I’m doomed to fail. It’s usually just little things, like once in second grade when the whole class was talking (myself included) and the teacher told us all to pull a card (card-pulling was the discipline system) except for me. I should have said I was talking too. But I didn’t. I take advantage of stuff like that.

Then again, maybe I make my own luck. I’m a good student, most of the time, academically and behaviorally. Perhaps teachers cut kids a break if they have a history of being good and quiet in class. Maybe they understand that even the good kids make a mistake every once in a while. I think that must be it. And I attribute things to luck that were really my own doing. Is that some kind of extreme modesty? Maybe. I think I just lose sight of what I have accomplished since I am forever thinking ahead to the next task.

That brings me to another thing: when is it the right time to stop? How do I know when I’ve worked enough, when I should just enjoy life and get out of the house and do what I want? Will that time ever come? Most Americans already work until they’re at least 62 1/2, so that they can retire with government benefits. After 57 years of school, college, and work, can those retirees now enjoy life? No, because they’re old and can’t do most of the things they would have done if they were younger. Retirees go from being a slave to their job to a slave to their age.

It’s funny how we say that we abolished slavery after the Civil War, when slavery is still around today. Except now, we have something stronger than the tyrannical slavery that was practiced in the 18th and 19th centuries. We have social slavery. Is it not true that people are slaves to their own lives? Is it not true that people are forced to do what they should do, not what they really want to do? People are slaves to their jobs because they need money. They are slaves to money because they need it to buy food and material items to help them flaunt their wealth and “live better.”
Because society as a whole seems to be focused on accumulating possessions and wealth, we are, in turn, each slaves to each other. This is no longer social contract theory, where everyone must give up certain rights to society as a whole. This is fascist contract theory, where everyone must give up all their rights to society as a whole, whether they want to or not. People who try to break out of the rigid social system end up publicly humiliated or in jail. Now, public humiliation really doesn’t sound that bad, if it means freedom from the shackles of society. But in truth, public humiliation is society’s greatest weapon. The brave extremists who do risk this punishment are the Michael Jacksons of the world.

No, I don’t think Michael Jackson is innocent. Nor do I think what he did to all those little kids was right. But I question the authority that made his acts of homosexuality “wrong.” I’m not gay myself, but I’m no homophobe. Let people do what they want. The only reason people are so vehemently against such things as gay marriages is that they don’t want to be labeled gay themselves. And they don’t want to be labeled gay because they fear that they will be oppressed and ridiculed like so many gays are. For this same reason, many homosexuals won’t admit their sexual preference, even to those closest to them. It all comes down to the fact that they are crushed by the overwhelming threat of humiliation by society. Like I said, the most powerful weapon of our culture.

I don’t approve of homosexuality. But I don’t really want to get into that. I do, however, applaud those who go against the flow, against the trend, to stand up for what they believe is right. These are the people that have made our society what it is today, molding and shaping it into its current form. Arguably, our culture is in dire need of improvement right now. But at least the brave ones who stood and fought, from the Revolutionaries to today’s Greenpeace and PETA, made a difference. As a final question, I ask: What point is there in living if you make no difference in the world during your lifetime?

Hello. Today I made a decision. Today is the beginning of my path to righteousness, to feeling content with myself. I am a big keed. And for a while, it was okay. I didn’t feel hindered by it, nor did I really care. But now…I sometimes wish I was build like a normal kid my age, even if it mean some decrease in height. I’d even go so far as giving up my academic skill if it meant I could be marginally skilled athletically. Alright, maybe not.

These days, it no longer matters what you look like. You can be purple-skinned, ungendered, and four-armed, and, if you’ve got some semblance of intelligence, you can get somewhere in the world. It was only two hundred years ago that being like that would get you locked up in an insane asylum where mad scientists performed prefrontal lobotomies on you.

I guess I’m kind of avoiding the point here. Americans, as we all know, are becoming fatter. Children and adults. There may even be a time when more people are overweight than are normal-sized. We know that diets are not the answer, since they are not sustainable over time. (This doesn’t mean people should stuff themselves, however.) Exercise helps, but it requires time, a precious commodity that most people don’t have much of. But no matter what, it requires a change in lifestyle. And people hate change.

My friends could tell you that I’m not really that fat. Or so Dylan claims. Perhaps I’m blessed, or perhaps I’ve just mastered the methods of keeping it from showing, but people really don’t seem to notice that much. Maybe they notice more than I think. But it isn’t about what everyone else thinks. It’s about what I think. And I have grown to hate the lard.

The lard is my name for my gross obesity. It grew out of the dark days known now as 7th grade, when Johns-EE still terrorized the halls of our school. (He still teaches at STMS, but we’re not there anymore, thankfully.) But someday, the word will no longer have meaning, at least not when applied to me. Because then I won’t be lard-EE.

Deciding to slim down and be more physically fit is nothing new for me. Usually my feeble tries last about a week, and then I’m back to my old habits. Hopefully this time it will be different, even with the temptations of Christmas looming ahead. We’ll see.

I’ve thought up a kind of plan for doing this. Here:
The Plan
2 x 10 push-ups nightly, increasing by five each week
2 x 20 sit-ups nightly, increasing by five each week
No snacks. Some kind of breakfast
Max. of 2 20 oz Vanilla Pepsis weekly, decreasing over time
One serving of everything at dinner (no refills)

This probably looks like a diet. It isn’t. A diet is normally where a person eats less that the average person would. I eat far more than the average person already, so all I am doing is returning to the level that I should be at. I’ve been drinking a lot more water, too, which is good, hopefully to replace the caffeine and lower my intake of soda and such. And the exercise is light, but I want to get to the point where I do a fair amount of exercise daily, rather than the minimum P.E. requirement. I don’t want to start with anything overly strenuous or inconvenient, though, for fear of giving up early.

The key ingredient that I haven’t yet mentioned is will. I have to really want it. I have to grow to see food for what it really is: food, and not something to hoard or inflate myself with. It won’t be easy, but perhaps it will be successful.

And now onward to everything else I have to say:
I have an English project due Monday. I have no idea what to do. There’s a good chance I’ll get a bad grade on it, if I can think up anything to turn in at all. I dunno. It would be better to do it and get marked off ten or fifteen points rather than not do it and lose fifty. My grade in that class is pretty strong; it can handle it.

In other classes, we’ve been doing study guides and such to review for the final. Most of them are easy and boring, but I’m surprised at how much I don’t remember sometimes. Fogelson is doing a Jeopardy on Monday, which I will kick ass at, as always. In biology, we’re doing nothing, as usual. I’d be happy with never taking another science class again. By the way, I chose my classes for next year, and I think chemistry will be much better than biology.

Class - Reason
Honors English 10 - I might get stuck with Thorpe, who is widely thought to be either a drug addict or a witch, though I don’t really know her. I took this just because I didn’t want an English class stuffed with jerk children.
Honors Algebra 3-4 - I’ll probably have Delgrosso, an all-around nice guy, as far as I know. I already took geometry, so this is next in line.
AP European History - I’m still wishing I’d taken AP World History, even after all the despairing over the possible homework load. I’ll have Fogelson for AP Euro, which is good.
Honors Chemistry - This one was really from peer pressure from my friends. I don’t really want to take it. But at least we’ll all be in it together.
Web Development - Technically I don’t have the credentials to be enrolled in this class. But I know counselors, I know Mr. Trapani. He needs me enough to pull strings, hopefully.
Spanish 5-6 - The next level. My friend Jim is taking French, to my dismay. Somehow I don’t think he’ll last long. Tyler and I are the language people of our group, and we’re both in Spanish (though he is a level below me because he didn’t take it in middle school both years).

More Honors and AP than Freshman year, which is good, because I feel kind of underchallenged right now. It’s my own fault, I know. I won’t make the mistake again. I really wish I could do the classes of my own choosing without needing to think about what I need to graduate or what universities want me to have.

My Dream Schedule
Creative Writing/Advanced Creative Writing
AP European History
Philosophy I-II
Spanish 5-6
Web Development
Networking
That would be cool, as unrealistic as it is. I have to have one English class, and I’d need a math class too. Requirements are stupid; they’re only there to keep the idiots from making dumb mistakes. People don’t realize that they limit the possibilities of creative or intelligent children. But without them, the idiot group would take recreational basketball all day.
There should be a test that decides whether you are responsible enough to have complete control over your class choices and schedule or not. But that will never happen, because the soccer moms will riot in the streets, screaming that a system like that would be unfair to their “special” children. (Camera focuses on children of soccer moms smoking marijuana and having premarital sex in the background while their parents are occupied with “fighting for their education.”)

The truth is, most kids just don’t care about their high school education. Rather than letting parents step in, I say we let the dumbasses run wild while the good children take the classes that they think will help them most in whatever career they have chosen. Then, when the dumbasses see reason and realize that they will need a job to support the eleven children they’ve each fathered, they can work for the smart kids. That’s fair, isn’t it? I think so.

It’s funny how Arizona has tried to reform their education system in recent years. AIMS testing, more schools, more money, but less teachers. Yes, that makes sense. And while we’re at it, let’s hand out more pink slips while signing a bill to begin building a $400 million football stadium for a team that sucks. That’s $400 million of taxpayer funds being wasted on the Cardinals. Send them to Alberquerque, or Las Vegas, or Podunk, Idaho, for all I care. No one goes to their games to watch them, anyway. They go to watch the opposing team.

And back to the $400 million dollar question: why do we have a $1 billion budget deficit? Hmm…I wonder. If we’ve spent half a billion dollars on a new stadium, and another $200 million on a hockey arena, and another $50 million on rubberizing two-year-old freeways that should have been rubberized in the first place, and $50 million more on widening those newly-rubberized freeways that were too narrow to begin with…that’s $700 million already. I wish I could vote.